Laboring For Laughs

When you're a stand-up kind of guy, you can't stay out of the spotlight for long. With Comedian, Jerry Seinfeld proves that even multimillionaire comics are compelled to make strangers laugh.

Comedian also proves that performing -- even when you're the lauded Seinfeld -- demands work. Lots and lots of work.

Culled from 600 hours of digital video footage collected over 14 months of comedy-club performances, the documentary film -- which is playing in South Florida theaters -- shows the tedium and torture that even sainted stand-ups such as Seinfeld go through to perfect their craft.

"A laugh is not a small thing," Seinfeld said in an interview to promote the $500,000 film, which he financed. "To make someone happy just for a few seconds -- and it's not someone you know, it's on a professional level, you're doing it in a theater where you're being paid to do it and people are paying to see you do it -- to make that happen can be a bit of a trick."

Comedian shows him behind the scenes and onstage at a dozen comedy clubs throughout the country, anxiously testing his timing and material, seeking and listening to the advice of other stand-ups. The film is filled with scenes of Seinfeld getting feedback from Bill Cosby, Robert Klein, Colin Quinn, Garry Shandling, Jay Leno, Chris Rock and others.

It takes a funny mind to come up with fresh and funny material, and even then it comes in drips and drams.

"Twenty minutes in three months is a ton," we hear Seinfeld say in the film -- and headliners often hold the stage for much longer than that. "Twenty minutes isn't comedy. Nowadays, it's 90."

"It is kind of interesting that I was willing to crawl on my belly for all that time [to make the movie]," Seinfeld said. "There are not a lot of people who are willing to do that. They don't want to go back into an environment in which they're going to be harshly judged.

"I'm in a unique position to take you on a tour from the bottom to the top of this world. Robin Williams probably could have done it, because I know he works out in comedy clubs. But to see what comedy clubs are like and then what headlining is like and then what going into a big theater is like -- that's pretty much the spectrum."

Seinfeld was in such a position because he is wealthy and no longer had an act. He made a cool $250 million off his TV show, then famously retired his old routines in a tour culminating in the 1998 HBO special, I'm Telling You for the Last Time.

To make a movie showing the comeback process is both daring and a bit of a conceit. But with Seinfeld at the helm -- he made the film with Christian Charles and Gary Streiner, a pair of New York ad executives he met while making commercials -- the results are strikingly genuine.

In a stroke of genius, the film contrasts Seinfeld's return to the saddle with the work of an up-and-coming comic named Orny Adams.

Seinfeld admitted that adding Adams was his collaborators' idea.

"I didn't like the idea until I saw it," he said. "When I saw it, I saw [Adams] was expressing things every comedian feels. You can see that I'm feeling the same things -- the same arrogance, the same insecurity, the same tenuous emotion of it all."

The filmmakers' primary goal was to make a truthful movie.

"The rule was that we would only have people in it that we just happened upon naturally," Seinfeld said. "We didn't want to set anything up or call anybody or say, `Would you come down and hang out at the club? We want you on our film.' It was just people who were really there or who we stumbled upon as I was going about my business."

No one declined to be part of the film, Seinfeld said, and the sterling comics who appear were compensated. Their interaction provides the heart of the film. What comes through is that comedians are a brotherhood.

What also becomes clear in the film is that not all brothers are equals. Adams gets his shot on The Late Show With David Letterman, but it's apparent he has rough edges to smooth. Seinfeld exudes confidence whenever he takes the stage, and his years of experience, combined with the audience's easy acceptance, place him on a higher tier.

And then there's Bill Cosby. To see the reverence and respect other comedians give him brings a tear to the eye. As Seinfeld was touring the country, so was Cosby, and comedians were in awe: The Man was doing 21/2 hours of fresh material.

Is he the godfather of comedy?

"Definitely," Seinfeld said. "There's no comedian that doesn't look up to him."

Did you pursue him?

"No, I was just going to the show. I met him 20 years ago, and we've crossed paths half a dozen times since then."

Were you blown away?

"Blown away. As great as I thought he was, I was blown away again."

He did 21/2 hours?

"You've got to see it to believe it, I'll tell you that. This is 40-some-odd years of crafting. All new."